Porting mame?

[kingka]

is it possible to port mame or a kailerra client onto the n810? or would the nn810 not be able to handle it.

[zerojay]

There already is a port of MAME for the N800 based on XMAME, however XMAME has been dead for many months now. I doubt it would be able to play much beyond old 80s games though. The Kailerra (however it's spelt) is closed-source as far as I know, so there's no way to port that.

There's nothing that should keep XMAME from running after a few minor adjustments to the source for IT2008.

[zeez]

There is mame for the n800....

[kingka]

damn, so i'm guessing none of the street fighter or vs series would work.

[kingka]

hope someone updates this for the n810.

[zerojay]

First off, no, Street Fighter II wouldn't work. Not only would it be too slow, but you don't have anywhere near enough buttons to play with. You can completely forget about the Vs. Series. You'd be far better off using a PSP for those.

[kingka]

uhm, there is a hw kb now... right? so I would assume the buttons would work? but anyways, you're right. it would go to slow. would be nice if it worked though. thanks

[zerojay]

I'd be right with you, man. Mobile online CPS2 games? That would be awesome... but it'll have to wait until we get something a lot more emulation-friendly.

[hordeman]

damn, so i'm guessing none of the street fighter or vs series would work.

i've played ssf2t on the n800 --- to confirm, yes, it is slow. however, it may be worthwhile w/ a 400mhz cpu.

[Capt'n Corrupt]

I was just reading a post in the developers section of this forum regarding Full Speed SNES emulation (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6954). The emulator in question was built for ARM cpus, but there is not an N800 version (though it may be reasonable to port).

The main issue with the N800 was the lack of a multi-touch screen or adequate buttons limited the games to ones with simple controls (RPGs, etc). The Poster "ArnimS" (a member of this forum that lurks in the developers section) has done tremendous work for gaming on the Nxxx IT series. His website is here (http://pupnik.de/) listing several projects.

Now that the N810 has a keypad (and D-Pad), it's got more than enough buttons to offset the lack of a multi-touch screen for input, and if comfortable enough, should be an adequate controller. This opens the library of possible games tremendously that will look quite good on the smaller screen.

Now, I understand that the SNES version of Street Fighter 2 (or the super turbo version) would not be a perfect arcade replicate, but a descent enough simulant. Plus I can think of a number of SNES games that would be fun to take on the road (Chrono Trigger, The Marios, etc). There are also a whack of open source games, and even flash games that can take advantage of the new keypad.

Lets hope that able developers can port/mature this software and open gaming in a serious way for the Nxxx tablets.


}:^)~
YARR!!

Caaaaaapt'n

[kingka]

I'm really pushing for the flash games. the iriver clix has a fairly big library of really fun games (with beautiful graphics). which are all flash based. there should be a way to somehow convert those over. not to mention the thousands of addictive flash games online. if there was an app with a well designed UI that allows you to run flash game, that would be perfect. if what you are saying about super nes roms working on the n810 is true. this would probably be the ultimate tablet.

btw, I'm a graphic designer and illustrator, if anyone needs any design services I'd love to collaborate with you guys to develop/design some killer apps. its good to have right and left brained people working together (design aesthetics + functionality).

[kingka]

http://www.bobpitch.com/zookeeper/zk.html

I'd love to play this game. touch screen zookeeper anyone?

[Capt'n Corrupt]

@kingka. Agreed.

I've said it before, the Nxxx series is probably the best example of a convergence device because of its size and capability. Now with the Keypad of the N810, especially the way it's laid out, it should be well suited for gaming! How many pocketable devices can claim all of these capabilities?

As far as performance is concerned, there seems to be no good reason why this tablet shouldn't soar as a game platform. I remember emulating SNES/Genesis/GameBoy/GameGear with my 200MHz Pentium. The different bus of the N810 may provide different performance bottlenecks, but I've seen Quake 2 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=jPh2Os0D8pY) being played at a very respectable framerate (software rendering at 330MHz, before the increased clock speed), so I'm quite certain that the N8xx should be fast enough to emulate the classics at full speed (of course, with optimization).

The N810 also has an AMAZING graphics accelerator that has been laying dormant since the first N800 rolled off of the assembly line. With this, I'm confident that Playstation and even N64 emulation would be possible (albeit probably slow). I did it on my Pentium 200, and PSX emulation has already been PROVEN on the N800 at ArminS's site (painfully slow, but possible). I certainly hope that the PowerVR MBX inside of the OMAP2420 (N8xx CPU) gets some drivers written. It would be fun to play a couple of accelerated death matches in quake 2 from the unit.

Yet another reminder why closed source sucks. We should all raise money and put out a software bounty for N8xx PowerVR mbx reverse engineered drivers. Had I the time, I would try to reverse engineer this badboy myself.

http://www.bobpitch.com/zookeeper/zk.html
I'd love to play this game. touch screen zookeeper anyone?

Thanks for the link, I had a go and it was fun. This game should be easily enough played from the browser. It doesn't seems as though it requires high performance, or extreme responsiveness to play. But I agree that a dedicated app with links to online SWFs (flash files) and a cool game browser (possibly downloader -- for those games that load all at once) would be amazing.

Also, lets not forget that with bluetooth or WiFi, you can connect and play online. A pretty nice capability not only makes the N810 a gaming device, but a network-able gaming device.

I hope the community rallies on the ports and development, as we have a monster on our hands that only needs software to be unleashed.


}:^)~
YARR!!

Rapt'n Rorrupt

[kingka]

and like I said. I'm up for helping out on the design side. I've got 7 years professional experience in design, graphic, user interface, illustration. etc. currently working @ an ad agency. this is pretty much all i can contribute...

[zerojay]

As far as performance is concerned, there seems to be no good reason why this tablet shouldn't soar as a game platform. I remember emulating SNES/Genesis/GameBoy/GameGear with my 200MHz Pentium. The different bus of the N810 may provide different performance bottlenecks, but I've seen Quake 2 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=jPh2Os0D8pY) being played at a very respectable framerate (software rendering at 330MHz, before the increased clock speed), so I'm quite certain that the N8xx should be fast enough to emulate the classics at full speed (of course, with optimization).


You can't compare different chip types by clock speed.

That said, if we could get a port of PocketSNES which uses the snesadvance speed hacks database (just like the PSP port of SNES9x), it will be a major push towards getting it to work well.

[Capt'n Corrupt]

Agreed.

Just to clarify: I used the Quake2 example and mentioned potential bottleneck differences between the systems as not to give the impression that clock speed base requirement for emulation.

There's sufficient evidence to convince me that N8xx is more than capable of acting as an SNES/Genesis/NES/GameBoy/GameGear/MasterSystem emulator.



}:^)~
YARR!!

Mister C

[Capt'n Corrupt]

@kingka

Actually I do have a few fun projects that are directed at the Nxxx series. I don't have time to work on these now, but I'll likely rally for support at the turn of the new year, when I have more time to devote to them.

}:^)~
YARR!!

</\PT/\|N <0RR\/PT

[kingka]

cool~ count me in!